


Heart-aches and Breath-takes

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Red Hood and the Outlaws
Genre: GOD THIS JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, MY FIRST TIME ATTEMPTING FEMDOM, Multi, uhhhh drugging?? is that a tag??, vomiting too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 10:27:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14054931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Torment and horror and the forceful drugging that was the night before has left Roy bedridden, filled with shattered ribs and puss-filled stab wounds, covered in old itching bandages and a pressure in his chest that made it burn and his breath leave his lungs with every shift.But his loves take away his breath and break his chest, his heart in a whole nother way, and he'd prefer their method to the Hatters, thank you very much.





	Heart-aches and Breath-takes

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! Just a little warning before we got in here: if you either didn't read or couldn't make sense of my tags, there is a mention of rape/non-con/ underage/ child abuse in this story. It's just a line, a sentence, but those who are uncomfortable with it be weary. There is also a large mention of children being kidnapped and "hypnotised" (for lack of better term) and they are in very provocative clothing because Jervis Tetch is a delusion and terrible man. That's just backstory, however, and this fic mostly focuses on Joyfire and the love they all share. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it x
> 
> (Also Femdom and Kori being amazing towards the end, few crude references and lots kissing, but considering you're here, you'll be fine)

Roy huffed, fiddling with the old metal lighter on his bedside table. He flicked the latch, a flame igniting at the tip and flickering around his fingers. He closed the lid, and the flame died.

He could hear Jason banging around in the kitchen, pots and pans clanging together and Spanish music wafting in through the speakers, the ticking of the burner lighting as Jason turned it on. Kori was singing, loud out of tune singing from the other room, soft thumps from her dancing feet pattering across the wooden floor and Roy strained to hear if she was singing along to Jason’s music or singing a song of her own.

Scratching his chest, he placed his hand by his side and went to heft himself up, only for the stitches on his side to tug, making him grunt and slowly lower himself back down on the cushions. He made a face and swatted one away, watching the mini baby blue beanbag fling across the room. One out of many, the suffocating amount of cushions piled up around his head and behind his back, convincing him that Kori had replaced the matrices in the spare bedroom in favour of a pile of pillows.

It wasn’t really a spare bedroom. It was his old room, before they decided to screw being proper and just buy one king-sized bed and sleep in Jason’s room, the largest room in the house. Roy’s stuff was still on the wall, some clothes that didn’t all fit in their shared wardrobe piled in the corner of his own, spare caps in a uniform tower by the window, pictures and posters and postcards and memories all tacked to the walls with too-sticky glue tack, leaving ugly grey stains in the place where it had peeled off the already chipped white paint.

Kori thought that moving in here would be safer, the solidarity comforting and the stillness a better alternative to Jason’s snoring and their sleep-induced fights with the darkness, Kori’s unsettling nature to levitate whoever she was holding up with her and drop them when she let go, the constantly moving mass of tangled limbs like a spider in a web and the night-terrors that seemed to grip their hearts and rip it through their already broken rib cages.

Yes, Kori thought Roy would be safer in his old room, away from the hurricane that was his sleeping loves.

Roy looked down at his chest, the bruises hidden by white bandages, speckled with blood and green oozing puss from the wounds and stitches that had torn and needed to be replaced, winding along his chest and his sides down to his belly-button, his cracked ribs making it hard to breathe, to move, to lie. He lifted his hand and peaked under the bandages, lifting the highest ones to check if the slice was still there, still dripping and oozing and with all stitches attached.

Slowly lowering it back down, he cursed himself for being so careless. He reached across to his bedside table, grabbing the glass of water and taking a swig, before swishing it around in his mouth and spitting it out into the bin by his side. The taste of last night was still in his mouth, and Roy felt like throwing up at the memory. He wouldn’t though, he probably wouldn’t ever throw up again for as long as he lived if he could help it, needing to vomit up whatever glowing green toxin the Mad Hatter had shoved down his throat the night before had turned him off puking for the rest of his life.

He rubbed his wrists, the red rashes and bruises still pressed into his skin from where he had tried to pull at his bonds, his wrists bound by rope behind the chair seated at the tea-party. Hatter had tried to make him drink from the little porcelain cups, but he obviously didn’t think that far ahead, and when Roy wouldn’t- couldn’t- drink, the Hatter tipped his head back, grabbed his neck and poured it down his throat. It burned when it touched his skin, making him woozy and dizzy and all kinds of messed up, and Kori had told him later his eyes were like a neon sign, glowing the same colour as the tea, half-lidded and absent.

He had shoved two fingers down his throat the moment they brought him home and he stumbled into the bathroom, head right over the bowl and heaving the liquid up, someone was holding his hair back, but he wasn’t sure who, didn’t care- he found out later that it was Jason, who’d sent Kori out to make coffee and get the first aid kit, which is when she had smothered his room in every pillow she could find- he just wanted to get it _out._

He’d insisted he was alright, said he could help out and take care of his wounds, but he’d run into the table and the fridge and tripped over his own feet on his way to the couch leaving blood-stained handprints on the walls so many times that Kori ended up carrying him to his old room, and he hasn’t moved since.

He could hear Kori giggling from the lounge, the music turned down low enough to hear their voices through the walls. He couldn’t make out the words they were saying, but it was definitely something to do with Kori convincing Jason to teach her how to dance, and Jason laughing and spinning her around by the hand.

Roy sighed, adjusted his position on the bed scratched his chest again. The bandages were old, rough and itchy, irritating his skin over the already healing scars from earlier missions. He made a mental note to get more once Kori and Jason would let him leave his bed.

They’d had a deal a long time ago, a proposition for when one of them got hurt, to carry on with their lives and not worry about the other unless it was to bring them food or water or company and Kori and Jason were great at that, could distance themselves enough so that they could still be concerned by their injured other but not let it hinder them into an uncontrollable mess of worry and fear.

Roy had never been good at that. He got too attached to people and their problems too quickly, losing sleep over the wellbeing of the people he cared about. Often times, someone had to drag him away from the bedside, forcing him to eat and holding him down in the bed so he couldn’t escape and give in to his closing eyes and let exhaustion overtake him. It was usually Kori, being nearly invincible and extremely hard to hurt, she usually was the one to drag Roy away from Jason’s bedside and make him take care of himself.

The music outside turned off completely, Jason’s soft chuckles floating through the air. Roy tried to get up again, but a flare of pain from his rips had him falling back down, rolling his eyes and groaning in pure annoyance.

He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, the rabid cackling of the Hatter ringing in his ears and the circling strobe lights of the casino burned behind his eyelids. The memories were burned into his brain almost like the green toxin that had made a permanent home in his gums.

“Where’s my Alice?” on repeat, again and again, “Oh, there she is! Come meet my Alice.” He was directed to stare at one of the many women in blond wigs, blue dresses, smeared red lipstick and glazed over eyes, black and white striped garters and bruises up and down their skin. Roy had eyed them as they sat down, silently and with droopy eyes, a drowsy smile plastered on their porcelain painted faces.

A pair of purple cat ears had been placed on Roy’s head, his hat discarded and his arrows gone. Closing his eyes, he tried to resist the lull of the lights and the too-sweet smelling tea and treats littered around the table like a spoiled kid’s birthday party.  “Now now!” Tetch chided, slapping Roy’s face until he opened his eyes. “You haven’t even had any tea yet! No point falling asleep before it’s even begun, aye? Children!” He turned, called down a corridor, wide opaque glass doors hiding the dark hallway. “Bring the Cheshire Cat some tea before he disappears, would you?” Clanging, giggling, heavy breathing, footsteps and then silence down the hall.

Roy snorted, “If you think I’m the Cheshire Cat, you’ve obviously never met the real Cheshire.” _You’ve obviously never met Jade because you’re still alive._ He wanted to say, wanted to laugh in his face that the mother of his daughter would die before she let him near Lian, let him near any child and any girl in need of a hand to hold and a warm place to stay.

The Hatter turned to him with wide angry eyes, a cattle rod raised high in his right arm, but the door opened and a row of children in sequined mini dresses and dress shirts walked out, some in blue butterfly wings and hookah pipes on their belts, others with bunny ears and gloves, but all with the same identical bruises and glazed-eyes as the Alice’s, fake smiles plastered on their too-cheery faces.

A little girl with a black eye and newly-crooked nose brought him the green gunk in the tiny tea-cup, and Roy could see bruises up and down her legs in the rounded shape of fingertips showing from underneath her sequined dress and she walked away with a shuffling limp. Roy had grit his teeth and clenched his bound fists from behind him, but the Hatter laughed in his face and was pouring the green liquid down his throat, and Roy was suddenly feeling groggy and sluggish and unsteady, eyes blurring and mouth going dry, fingers and toes going numb, mind going cloudy and then stopping altogether.

He was aware that there were explosions and gunshots from somewhere else in the casino, but all that mattered to the Cheshire Cat was the tea he wanted to drink to please his dear friend and the tales he had heard of the Jabbowoki, the cookies and the crumpets and the tarts he promised he would eat and many gifts he had to give his darling lost Alice- 

A knock on his door brought Roy from his thoughts, and he quickly swished his mouth out with more water and spat it out before he told them to come in.

A golden-brown hand opened the door, accompanied by purple manicured nails and the waft of chilli, and Roy smiled to greet her. She walked through the doorway with a smile on her face and his breathing stopped.

Her hair was braided into two-semi circles like suns on the side of her head, her fringe swept to the other side like an ocean wave and the longest parts of her hair tied up into a high ponytail with her own hair as the band holding it all together. Her lips were painted a perfect shade of deep purple, eyelids the same colour, a tinge of gold to them. Grey leggings with a light blue racing stripe were clad on her legs, a baby pink crop top and a short turquoise jacket on her shoulders. She had on lace up sandals, the same purple as her lipstick. The breath was taken from his lungs in a burst as if his Princess had ripped it out as payment for being in his presence. She smiled, and Roy felt himself going lightheaded, had to lean his head back against the cushions.

Jason came next, grey hoodie over white patterned t-shirt, hair as if he walked through a cyclone, tussled and messy. He had a tired and welcoming smile on his face, his eyes slightly lidded, his lips red and puffy, tints of purple ringed the edges, a dark bruise on his neck, also ringed in purple like a border. Roy had to remind himself to breathe as Jason licked his lips and sauntered into the room, threading a hand through his already messy hair, staring holes into Roy’s very soul.

“How are you feeling?” Kori asked, sitting down gently on the edge of the bed, placing the bowl of chilli on the bedside table. Jason leaned against the doorframe as Kori rearranged the pillows around his head.

Roy shifted, trying to sit upright again, but he hissed as he felt his cracked rib shift. Kori tutted at him, gently resting a hand on his back and lifting him up so he could shuffle backwards and lower himself back down. “I’m alright,” He grunted as his stitches pulled. “I’m feeling a bit better. I’ll be out of bed in no time. I can’t get the taste of the stupid green stuff out of my mouth though and these bandages are itchy as _hell_ , but I can deal.”

Jason chuckled, pushed himself off the door frame and moved around Kori to the other end of the bed and sat down, leaning against the backboard. “We got them out Roy,” He answered the question in Roy’s eyes. “The kids. We got them out. Jarvis is in prison, we called the GCPD and they took them home. They’ll all be needing some sort of therapy, maybe even rehab, but we got them all out.”

Sighing and closing his eyes, he leaned back heavily against the pillows. Kori put a hand on his shoulder. “There was a little girl.” He said quietly, thinking back to the moment. “She gave me the green stuff. She had a broken nose and a black eye- “

“And bruises on her legs and a limp?” Jason finished and Roy’s eyes shot open, he nodded frantically. “We got her. She was a daughter of one of the GCPD officers, he was the first in there. She’s safe.”

Roy raised his hands and pressed the palms hard into his eye sockets. “Thank God.” He muttered.

“What do you remember?” Kori asked, gently dragging the tips of her fingers down his cheek, sliding down to his bare shoulder and trailing along his arm, the skin tingling and sending a shiver down his spine.

 _I thought I was in wonderland_. He thought, blinking a few times to get rid of the psychedelic swirls. “Nothing,” he lied, biting his lip as Jason looked him up and down, a hunger in his eyes Roy only saw in rare moments of pure desperation in the secret of their bedroom. He lost his train of thought as he thought about it, struggling to get back on track. “I don’t remember anything after the tea.”

Kori looked at Roy as though she knew he was lying, but she let it slide, instead leaning back on one hand and running the other through her hair, closing her eyes for a moment. Roy smirked at a fading yellow bruise he had kissed into her hip not too long ago, the skin peeking out from below her riding up crop-top.

Leaning forward and pressing his lips to Roy’s pulse point, Jason mouthed over his neck, kissing purple stains into the pale skin. “Get better soon, Roytoy,” He purred, deep and husky, making Roy’s eyes flutter and his breathing hitch in his chest. “You’re no good to us bedridden, and nobody can work their tongue better than you.”

Chocking on the breath that finally, suddenly forced its way out his lungs, Roy felt a heat crawling up his chest. He licked his lips and made contact with Jason’s lust clouded eyes and he smirked again, in control of the situation for once in his life. “Yes, Boss.” He sneered, watching in satisfaction as Jason’s pupils grew, his cheeks turned as red as the hood he adorns and his breathing grew uneven and jaunty. It wasn’t often Roy got to have authority, and he was savouring every moment of it, savoured the power he had over Jason right at this moment and loved to watch him, _make him_ , squirm-

Purple nails gripped his chin and yanked it quickly to the side, nails digging into the flesh of his cheek, and Kori narrowed her eyes at him. “He’s not the boss around here,” she whispered, colliding her lips against his and turning her face this way and that until it was almost painful- but Roy didn’t tell her to stop. Didn’t tell her that he couldn’t breathe and that his chest was burning because he had already given her his heart and his air and his _soul_ , he _belonged_ to her and Jason, belonged to her in every possible way, and he lived for it, lived for loving her, lived for loving _them_ , and when Kori pulled away and traced Roy’s lipstick covered lips with her nail and half closed her eyes with the smirk of a devil, he didn’t take in another breath.

Not until she leant forward and mouthed _breathe_ on his skin, the opposite side of Jason’s as she liked and sucked and bit and pulled the veins on his neck until he was sure she was drawing blood, that he opened his mouth and gasped a shuddering breath as she pulled back. “ _I_ am.”

When she shoved his chin away, he fell hard against the headboard with the breath knocked out of him, purple smeared across his face and bruises on either side of his neck. Jason and Kori were both staring at him with the eyes of hungry wolves. “You look like you want to eat me alive.” He panted, not making any move to clean his face.

Kori’s grin turned demonic, her teeth showing as she tilted her head back so she was looking at him through half-lidded eyes and full lashes. “That might not be a bad idea.”

Roy spluttered as Jason dug his nails into the meat of Roy’s leg making him gasp. “Don’t get too cocky,” he snickered, paying Roy back for the fleeting moment of victory he had before. “I’m her second in command.”

“Whoa,” Roy muttered, head spinning and eyes flickering closed, breaths coming in fits and starts. “You two are going to be the death of me.”

Kori laughed, loud and melodic like a wind chime outside during a storm, the in charge persona entirely dissipated until all Roy had of it was the memory. “I hope not,” she pushed herself upright and kicked off her shoes, floated a foot off the bed so she could flip around in the air and land gently so she was on her stomach, her chin in her hands. “Our lives would be rather uneventful without you.”

Snorting, Jason pushed himself backwards until his back was leaning against the wooden board at the foot of the bed, his legs crossed. “It would also be less stressful too.” Roy reached behind his head and threw a pillow at him, but Jason reached up and caught it with a chuckle, putting it behind him so he could lean on it. “But really, it would be _so_ boring.”

Roy smiled, felt a warmness in his chest, but not the blushing sort, the sort that made you feel all warm and fuzzy when you felt love and love back and Roy stared at the works of art in front of him, the beauty that was the view he got to look at _every single day_ of his _life._

“Hand me the chilli then.” He sighed, hand outstretched and Kori sat up a bit to reach over and hand it to him. “Let’s hope you didn’t make it as hot as Ollie does. If you did, I _swear_ I’m breaking up with you.”

Kori giggled, floated eye level with Roy and kissed him again, softly this time. When she pulled away, Jason came forward and did the same. It was strange, how even the smallest kind of affection from the loves of his life could take his breath away. It made the broken ribs and the stabs and the bleeding worth it.

“No you won’t,” Jason yawned, leaning back. “You love us too much.”

“Yeah,” Roy admitted, “I really really do.”

Kori raised her hand, palm towards Roy. “I love you, Roy Harper.”

Jason did the same, hand touching Kori’s and lacing his thumb with hers. “So do I, no matter how annoying you can be.”

Roy forgot about his chilli, placing it on the bed so he could join his hand with theirs, tangling their fingers together. Their matching tattoo stark on their wrists, the gun, the arrow and the sun warming Roy up from the inside out at the depth of their love. He had many tattoos, didn’t think that one more would matter, the tattoo on his side testimony enough to his deep and evolving love. Jason says it’s a phoenix to better cope, but Roy made sure he asked for a Robin, a degrading Robin on purple flames as a tribute to his loves. Jason hates it until Roy tells him that without the death of the Robin, Jaybird would never have been born, and Jason shuts up with tears welling in his eyes.

“I better get well soon, then.” Roy squeezed their hands and they both squeezed back. “God knows you need me.”

Kori laughed. “Eat up, or I’ll feed you.”

Jason cackled as Roy feigned mock fear, shovelling mild chilli into his mouth as though his life depended on it. Yes, Roy could deal with the aching in his chest from puncture wounds and broken bones, but the everyday breathtaking sight of his loves are what he _really_ lives for.


End file.
